On May 1, 2007, at 2:17 PM, T.V Raman wrote:
>
> Despite your assertion that that's what WA1.0 does,
> I think the feedback you're receiving loud and clear from everyone
> from outside
> the community that wrote that spec is to the contrary.
I think the people giving such feedback are either uninformed or
misunderstanding the spec. That's why I am trying to clarify what the
spec says. It has separate document and user agent conformance
requirements, where the document requirements are more strict. This
is a fact, regardless of how many people give feedback to the contrary.
> To date, I've seen all of that feedback dismissed rather
> peremptorily ---
> and in some sense, just asserting "that is what we're doing" is
> also just as dismissive.
Can you give evidence that the spec does not do this? I can
definitely state based on having read it that the requirements for
content producers define a stricter language than the requirements
for producers. No number of opinions otherwise
> I personally dont concur with that assertion.
Regardless of who concurs or not, it is true. Split conformance
requirements are a matter of fact, not opinion. Here is a specific
example, from the definition of the 'img' element:
<http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/#the-img>
"The img element represents a piece of text with an alternate
graphical representation. The text is given by the alt attribute,
which must be present, and the URI to the graphical representation of
that text is given in the src attribute, which must also be present.
...
If the alt attribute is omitted, user agents must treat the element
as if it had an alt attribute set to the empty string."
Notice that it requires content producers to include an alt attribute
on img, but requires content consumers to handle a missing alt
attribute in a specific way. So this is an example of exactly what
you asked for, a stricter language for produxers than consumers.
Now, it's possible to debate whether the spec goes far enough in
splitting user agent and document requirements. But whether it does
so at all is not debatable.
Regards,
Maciej